From Dearborn To The NFL: Robert Saleh’s, The 44 Year Old’s Meteoric Rise

Dearborn, Mich. — New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh will take center stage under the lights of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Monday night. Saleh, whose family immigrated to the United States from Lebanon decades ago, is the first Muslim American to be named head coach of an NFL team.

The 44-year-old has been the head coach of the New York Jets for the previous two seasons, but as the new season begins this weekend, he faces higher expectations – and obstacles – in taking over one of the NFL’s most talented, temperamental players in quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Saleh’s ascension through America’s best-loved sport is remarkable, having graduated from footballing powerhouse Fordson High School in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with the highest number of individuals of Arab origin outside the Middle East.

Furthermore, Monday’s game is on September 11, which is significant for multiple reasons. Because it is scheduled for Monday Night Football, it is expected to draw a large global audience.

It was also a highly personal day for Saleh: his brother, David, was on the 61st level of one of the World Trade Centre towers on September 11, 2001, when terrorists flew a jet into the structure. He was able to flee by rushing down dozens of flights of stairs. Robert changed his perspective on life as a result of the close call. He had begun a successful banking career, but Saleh changed course to follow his passion: coaching American football.

New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh will take center stage under the lights of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Monday night.

“When he called me a couple of months after 9/11 and said, ‘Coach, I want to be a football coach,’ I was shocked,” Jeff Stergalas, who coached Saleh as a teenager at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan, told Al Jazeera.

“He was in the banking industry, and he was well on his way to a great career.”

Stergalas claims that he told Saleh that he would have to start at the bottom, fetching coffee and printing material for senior coaches: “Robert said: ‘I don’t care, I want to do it.'”

Stergalas contacted a buddy who helped him find a job at a university in Michigan. Saleh steadily ascended the ranks, eventually becoming defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, whom he helped lead to the Super Bowl in 2020.

Fouad Zaban, the head coach of the Fordson Tractors football team and a native of Lebanon, claims that American football has changed the lives of innumerable Arab American youths.

“For many kids, it has given them a chance to get a college education through a scholarship and continue playing a sport that they love,” he told Al Jazeera. Zaban estimates that over 95 percent of his students are of Arab heritage, with several recent arrivals in the United States.

New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh will take center stage under the lights of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Monday night.

“A couple of years ago, a student here went on to make the Detroit Lions [NFL] team,” he recalled. “He was a first-generation Arab American born in another country.” He was able to attend college with a free education and go on to become a professional.”

As a high school coach for over 15 years, Zaban has witnessed new waves of Middle Eastern immigrants develop a love for the sport and attend local games as their children participate.

Coaching pupils whose families immigrated from the Middle East has been eye-opening for Stergalas.

“After games, I’d be invited to players’ homes for dinner.” “It was incredible,” he says. “I would bring other coaches with me to show them Arabic family life.”

On Monday night, Stergalas and many others at Fordson High School and throughout Dearborn will be glued to their television screens when Saleh enters the spotlight.

The New York Jets take on the Buffalo Bills, one of the league’s best teams, in what will undoubtedly be a litmus test for Saleh’s developing coaching abilities. Stergalas believes Saleh will be unaffected by having millions of eyes on him and the expectation of Dearborn on his shoulders.

“I could never have predicted that he would become an NFL coach back in the 1990s,” he added.

“But I was confident that anything he did would be a success. He was simply meticulous.”

SOURCE – (AJ)